Follow the Master Teacher

Teaching each other the gospel is an essential part of Heavenly Father’s plan. Learning gospel doctrine helps us learn to exercise righteous agency as we follow the Savior’s example, (see Teaching, No Greater Call, lesson 1).

“Many non-Christians acknowledge that Jesus was a great teacher. Indeed, He was,” says Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “But what truly distinguished His teaching? Was He a skilled instructor of engineering, mathematics, or science? As creator of this and other worlds, He surely could have been. Or as author of scripture, He could have taught literary composition very well. [But] the feature that distinguished His teaching above that of all other teachers was that He taught truths of eternal significance. Only He could have revealed our purpose in life. Only through Him could we learn of our pre-mortal existence and of our post-mortal potential.”

Elder Ballard also speaks of eternal truths that Christ taught during His ministry on earth.

“The mortal ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was comparatively brief,” he says. “He lived only thirty-three years, and His ministry was only three years. But in those three years He taught the human family everything that is necessary to receive all of the blessings our Father in Heaven has in store for His children. He concluded His mortal ministry with the single most compassionate and significant service in the history of the world: the Atonement.”

“To the master teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection we celebrate … I say: I thank thee, oh Lord, for teaching us that there is no greater call than to be an effective teacher.”